Of Dark Nights
by marastar
Summary: A dark night of the soul for Natalie Vega at the Angel Square Hotel. McNat filler scene between dusk and dawn.


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Angel Square Hotel

April 6, 2004

Midnight

You watch a person sleep and you see the possibilities. 

Fragile. Alone. Defenses down, they're like an open book. It's like you can almost touch it. A place where there would be no more barriers, or denials, or lies. 

It's cruel, in a way. To see something that's just beyond your reach. To know it's there, but that you'll never have it.

He's pale as he lies there, quiet and still, the neon glow bathing him in red light. So weak, as he was in the hospital, making her almost cry out in shock when she saw him. He looked half dead, the wires and tubes running everywhere, the color completely drained from his face. 

And suddenly the fear was back, the flashes of a hand pounding on a metal door as the water starts to rise, a face paralyzed in panic and screaming for salvation. The images that still haunted her at night, the reason she worked all the night shifts at Rodi's then volunteered to open the hair salon in the morning.

Instead, she'd pulled up a chair. Sat down. Took a deep breath and grabbed hold of his hand as tight as she could. Promised anything, anything at all if he would live through this. Willed the strength through her fingers, refusing to let the tears fall. Not now. Not anymore.

She wasn't going to let it slip away, not again. 

And when the doctor arrived to tell her that he'd live, it took everything she had not to weep with relief. And gradually, she felt the ache over her heart subsiding, the grip of her hand loosening. He will wake up, she thought, and everything will be as it was before. 

Sooner rather than later, as it turned out. 

Now she looks out into the night, the sky dark and deep, though you can barely tell from this part of the city. 

She's curled up on the chair, staring out at the Square, waiting, listening for his next breath. Even now, discharged by his own brother from the hospital, she's still not sure it will come. There's nothing you can count on for sure. 

Not a family, or a mother. A real childhood without strip joints, liquor store runs, scamming marks at the casino for extra cash when Rex was hungry and Roxy was nowhere to be found.

She used to be good at it too. Putting up the walls, protecting herself from all those things that could hurt her. But they somehow still find their way in.

She'd been slipping up for longer than she'd care to admit, despite all the bullshit talk about tough Jersey girls. She still crumbled, still felt the pain. Still let herself believe that the brass ring was within her reach, going around and around and around on the same damn ride. All her life she wanted something she couldn't have.

And he doesn't want her either.

He didn't want her to help him. Doesn't want her there at all. He doesn't want her to see him stumble in the dark, clutching his side, where the wound is still fresh – at least, in his mind. 

Still keeping everyone at arm's length. Even her.

She wonders how she never noticed it before. The pills, the pain. He hides it well, but she used to always see right through those small, invisible lies. She could see it coming a mile away, once upon a time, before the casino brat went into the forest, determined to get her own back on the way to Mama's house.

Yeah, she remembered the story all right. It was the one fairytale she'd ever seen as a kid back in AC. It wasn't like Roxy was into that stuff. Had to steal it from the waiting room at the hospital once, after passing out at school from something or other. 

Roxy had gone on a three-day bender again without even leaving so much as a few Saltines in the house, and she'd refused to dumpster dive. To make a point. She didn't need anybody's handouts, and she'd be damned before she ate anyone's garbage. 

Wasn't a bad deal, in the end. She got an afternoon off school, which she hated anyway, and some rest in a nice clean bed.

But seeing the book sitting on the table was too much. She wanted it. Wanted at least possession of the thing she'd heard other kids talk about with so much scorn and contempt. _Those baby stories are so lame. I told my mom to get me Super Mario Brothers instead. _

God, she would have given anything for that. A bedtime story, a tuck in, a kiss goodnight. Just one damn night, like she was a real kid. 

It was so tempting. 

So she'd reached out and grabbed it, stuffed the thing in her backpack before the nurse came back with some orange juice, slipping out as soon as she left. You could tell from the pity in her eyes that they'd called Child Services already. Nat had always had an instinct for these things.

So she took off, making her way back to the roach motel she called home, automatically flipping on the radio to keep her company. And she devoured that book like the five-course meal she had tried so hard not to fantasize about. 

It wasn't until later, of course, that she realized that all fairytales were pretty much all the same. A girl leaves home only to find danger in the forest. A cottage in the woods. A lone wolf disguised as a friendly stranger, a sweet grandmother. _Let me help you…_

First Mitch, then a dark stranger wearing a leather jacket and a grifter's smile, always the same lies behind their sweet words. Slipping between the cracks in her wall, she never sees them coming. 

They'd take her heart, they'd let her be the sacrifice. Because she was expendable. She was disposable. The other daughter, the extra sister. The lost little rich girl nobody really wanted found. 

She focuses now on the figure on the bed, propped up awkwardly against the wall, his head hanging down, his dark hair falling forward, obscuring everything. 

She gets up and walks over to him. Brushes the hair back gently with her fingers, and he stirs a little, then goes still again. Pulls a blanket over him, then returns to her chair in the corner. She watches him, seeing his chest rise and fall rhythmically, and feels the ache inside her begin to fade. 

And she thanks her lucky stars that for once in her miserable life, she took out the garbage on time. Thanks God that he's alive. Wonders what it would be like to crawl into that warm space under his shoulder, lay her head against his chest and close her eyes, listening only to his heartbeat.

Knowing, of course, that it will never happen. That his heart will never belong to her, or anyone but a ghost.

__

It's too late, she thinks. _Once you've let the lone wolf in._


End file.
